I used to have a coworker who was addicted to various drugs. I called him Malibu Barbie, because of his long blonde hair, emaciated body and blue eyes, plus excessive use of marijuana can give males large breasts. I remember once when he had run out of pot, he was on the phone all day, trying to find a dealer who had any. He was shaking, short-tempered and almost incoherent.

Another coworker, Poopie, and I enjoyed laughing at Malibu. We would often laugh at the thought of his pale, scrawny form huddled over in a corner sucking on his glass dick. Poopie had a crush on Malibu's girlfriend. She didn't do anything for me, though. Personally I try to avoid virus bombs. We affectionately referred to her as the "Crack Whore".

One day, Poopie and the Crack Whore got into an argument about life after death, or religion or something. Poopie had ADD, brought on by sniffing aerosols in his garage (he caught his house on fire), so it was kind of hard to figure out where he was coming from sometimes.

Anyway, the Crack Whore told us about her theory about the whole ordeal. She explained that she believed in reincarnation, to a degree, "you see, nothing can ever really be destroyed," she informed us, with her California hippie-chick accent, "when you die, you're spirit goes out and you become part of a star or a mountain or pot leaf..."

That was fucking profound, I thought to myself, as I watched Malibu's quivering stick figure trying to dial up a dealer on his cell phone.

"Try Chris!" the Crack Whore suggested.

What the hell do these two know about spirituality, I wondered. All they can think about is filling some hole in themselves with some sort of high. They're empty shells. A "pot leaf", Jesus fucking Christ.

I had another coworker. He did drugs every once in a great while, but hardly in a habitual manner. He was successful in school, basically because of being the over-achiever type. You all know this guy. The jock, the all-around guy.

Chip was a good guy and he attracted a lot of women. He was always going out with a different one and always getting them into bed. He would come to work and tell everyone about his latest conquest, smiling from ear-to-ear, like anyone really cared.

Chip was a shell too. He didn't use drugs, but sex, to fill his hole. His mother died when he was young. He never talked about it much, but I could tell it disturbed him by random comments he would make. He was vehemently anti-religious, no doubt because of his mother's early death. I mean, it's one thing to not be religious, it is quite another to have such a severe hatred of all things spiritual.

It was about the same time I worked at this place, and knew these people, that I began to notice a trend sweeping over America's youth. Extreme sports. They're still very popular. These people can't seem to get enough adrenaline. They're adventures become increasingly risky. They search for more and more adrenaline. They're addicted to that rush.

They have a hole.

Now, I'm sure these thrill-seekers and sex addicts and even some drug addicts are religious. I don't think I'm talking about that though. It's one thing to go to a church and pray for this or that and give to the collection plate and tell your fellow church-goers how much you have faith in Jesus. It's something else to have a sense of yourself as something that is more than just a mushy bag of mostly water.

It's that sense of something more that is slowly bleeding away from society. The more it's missing, the more people need to fill a void with drugs, sex, extreme sports, violence, whatever.

Don't agree? Did you ever see Gandhi racing down a mountain-side on a skate-board while sucking on a glass dick and trying to score a date with Natalie Portman?

Personally, I think it's rather sad when people can't cope without silly little fantasies of being anything other than "squashy sacks of mostly water". If you can't handle the truth, you can't handle the truth, and you aren't a better person for coping with this by inventing some fantasy about another airy-fairy non-material world rather than retreating into drugs and "extreme sports".

We're all just sacks of mostly water; get used to it. Religion is only useulf if you want an excuse for being a bastard to people.

... the worst tempered and least consistent of the adequacy.org editors... now also Legal department and general counsel, adequacy.org

On the other site, I've seen you defending people with religious faith. Now you're saying that religion is for the weak, and is in fact a vehicle for "being a bastard to people".

Which religion are you talking about? Every religion I can think of preaches tolerance towards one's fellow man. Those who use religion as a means to climb on their moral high horse and to judge and criticise others have deliberately misinterpreted their religion. It is wrong of you to use the actions of a small number of extremists to criticise all religions.

You know you are wrong. I expect you to apologise for your hurtful comment.

Every religion I can think of preaches tolerance towards one's fellow man.

Yeah, but show me even one who has never violated that doctrine on a large scale.

I think the main reason for the backlash against religion lately is because religion so often appears to be itself hypocritical. And as for your claim that it is a "small number of extremists," I suggest you try telling that to anyone who's family members have been slaughtered in the various religious wars which have occured over the years (and still are today), which were perpetrated not by a "small number of extremists," but by nations and yes, churches.

Hey, you make it sound like people are using drugs as an escape from their lives; that the rightists with their morality tales of junkies and dropouts are correct. This may be true for certain people, but not for most people!

I think the problem here is a fairly fundamental one in modern America - that the search for pleasure is seen as wrong, dirty even. Despite the separation of church and state we are a nation founded on the ideals of Christianity, and it pervades our national psyche in subtle and harmful ways. Couple that with our obsession with capitalism, with the "American Dream" (a sham concocted by the capitalist masters if I've ever heard one) and we see this situation - that anyone wishing to indulge rather than following the norms of society is seen as deviant, lacking.

I'm sorry, but the only people I see as having a "hole" are those that are unable to fill their life with anything other than blind consumption; these people are the ones that are less than human.

That I simply don't remember due to marijuana use. I vaguely remember working for a double glazing company at some point in there, but only really remember my last week with them which involved me getting stoned in my car.

Short term memory is shot as well.

Would I do it all again? Damn right. Life without experience is no life.

If this were really happening, you'd be wearing womens underwear.

Bullshit. (none / 0) (#15)

by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 10th, 2001 at 08:57:17 AM PST

Drugs and experience aren't the same. If drugs equates to life experience to you, you have a serious problem.

My vision on this matter is that everybody is full of holes and is constantly busy filling them. It's just that some people have more interesting ways of filling their holes. I don't see why working all week and watching the tube the rest of the time (that's how I see your life after reading your submission) would be a better way of filling holes than smoking pot. Maybe smoking pot isn't as healty as not smoking pot, but it's most certainly a lot more interesting. But then again...constantly using the same hole-fillers is pathetic and I don't see how constantly smoking pot would be more pathetic than filling your life with work,tube&sleep.

What I'm trying to say is: what's pathetic here is not the way these people live. What can possibly be considered pathetic is that they have trouble changing their life-style even if they wanted to. But this most probably also applies to you and many others. The lifestyles of the Malibu and Chip just aren't considered normal in your society, but they're just filling holes like everybody else. Only they've found a much more interesting way than most people.

Doing drugs is a more interesting way to fill holes? I used to do lots and lots of drugs, and yet I never felt that way. People who do drugs to fill holes are certainly not interesting, I would rather stare at a blank TV screen then listen to some high moron preach to me about some 800 year old piece of philosophy he thinks he has just discovered.

The only people drug addicts are interesting to are other drug addicts.

You fill your holes with religion. And a sense that you are superior to others because you use religion as a way of filling holes and escaping from reality, as opposed to drug use or adrenaline seeking or whatever. We all do it. I really don't think you're in any position to condemn what the others are doing. To them, what they do with their time is their own decision and if it makes them happy, so be it. Live and let live I say.

Although I agree with the maxim 'Judge not, lest ye be Judged' I think that judgement is perfectly ok as long as you yourself are willing to be submitted to the same scrutiny.

Saying 'live and let live' is used as a cop out for all sorts of difficult issues that face our society. I think it is brave and constructive to criticise and judge these things, otherwise we would descend into morally relative stasis. We need to appraise others and be appraised, and constantly criticise lifestyles and lifestyle choices. One of the problems I think our culture faces is this attitude of 'Live and let live'; it is fundamentally nihilistic and unconstructive.

I'm not saying not to challenge anything, what I'm saying is that if someone does something that affects no one else, who cares what it is? This applies to drug use, sexual orientation, and many other things that are viewed as taboo. As for our culture having the 'live and let live' attitude, I believe we are far from it. If we truly believed that, we wouldn't be trying to constantly restrict each others freedoms.

Let people do what they want to fill that hole, as long as it doesn't hurt other people or cause damage to other things.

Ever heard of the "Darwin Awards" sometimes people deserve what they get when they do things so stupid that it kills them or turns their brains or bodies into mush. Just more Bleach in the Genepool if they can off themselves before having offspring.

I fill my hole with religion, role playing games, comic books, movies/TV shows, etc. No drugs or booze or smokes here for me.

I'm still depressed and suicidal at times, all I can do is take my mind off my problems for a while, but they keep coming back. I cannot live nor can I die, but I just exist in a state between life and death. I am here, yet I am not here. So close, yet so far away.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective
companies.
Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest ® 2001, 2002, 2003 Adequacy.org.
The Adequacy.org name, logo, symbol, and taglines "News for Grown-Ups", "Most
Controversial Site on the Internet", "Linux Zealot", and "He just loves Open Source
Software", and the RGB color value: D7D7D7 are trademarks of Adequacy.org. No part
of this site may be republished or reproduced in whatever form without prior written
permission by Adequacy.org and, if and when applicable, prior written permission by
the contributing author(s), artist(s), or user(s). Any inquiries are directed to
legal@adequacy.org.